


When Things Got Loud

by frickitsconnor



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: also implied ruke at the end if you squint, right up until the end where we switch to modern, solely reggie centric and focuses on his childhood, this is just a vent fic if im being honest, yes i took the title from unsaid emily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:47:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29775009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frickitsconnor/pseuds/frickitsconnor
Summary: this is solely just a self-indulgent Reggie fic about what I headcanon his life was like growing up, and it's pretty angsty. This fic does talk about neglectful parents, emotional abuse and mental illness, so proceed with caution. I promise it's not all angst, though, and it does at least have a happy ending. Or, as happy as it can be.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	When Things Got Loud

Growing up, Reggie always knew something wasn't quite normal with his family. He never heard the other kids at school talk about how often their parents fought, or that sometimes things would get broken at their house. He thought maybe they just didn't want to talk about it; who would want to, especially as a child? However, Reggie soon came to realize that his home life wasn't as normal as he originally thought. He tried not to bring things up at school, and he'd ignore the teacher's concerns when he showed up with dark circles under his eyes. The yelling, the shattering of glass, it was just *his* normal. 

It wasn't always like that, though. When Reggie was super young, things were….okay, to say the least. There was obvious tension in the air sometimes, but usually it was just ignored. The peace didn't last too long, and Reggie was definitely still way too young when the daily fighting began. It started off with a few hushed arguments every couple of days, and slowly escalated to full-on screaming and the occasional thrown object. Reggie's siblings never spoke about it, they just seemed to act like nothing was going on. Maybe they didn't want to deal with whatever baggage their parents were going through, and Reggie couldn't say he blamed them. Reggie tried his best to ignore everything, like his siblings did, but it proved to be harder than he could ever imagine. Both of Reggie’s siblings were older; they had already moved out by the time he was just starting high school, which left him to deal with the growing aggression of his parents on his own. 

After Reggie’s siblings moved out, the topic of the arguments changed to something even worse: Reggie. It seemed every little thing he did got him either yelled at, or triggered one of his parents to start a fight with the other one. It got to the point that Reggie simply stopped sharing anything in his life with them, as he knew it would only make him a target of his parents’ anger. Every time he brought home another bad test grade, he just shoved the paper to the bottom of his bag and prayed that his teachers wouldn’t call his parents. Reggie got really good at forging one of his parent’s signatures, which allowed him to usually slip by and retake tests without them knowing about the original bad grade. It also helped that he had Alex around, who could usually tutor him enough that he would at least get a passing grade. Passing was all that really mattered to Reggie; he was never one to push himself above and beyond like Alex did. Of course, his parents weren’t pleased about that either, but if Reggie wasn’t failing all his classes, they had nothing to really get on his case about. 

Reggie really never had too many coping mechanisms when his parents started fighting. He tended to just lock the door to his room, and blast music. That was when he was older, of course, and he actually understood what was going on between his parents. Younger Reggie, however, spent a lot of time crying in his closet with his hands over his ears, wanting so badly to drown out the yelling. In the beginning, his older brother and sister would at least try to comfort him, explaining that sometimes their parents just got mad at each other and it wasn’t his fault. Reggie could remember trying to focus on them as they sat in front of his blanketed form, doing anything they could to distract him, whether it was telling him a story or letting Reggie talk about his day. As the fights grew more and more often and longer, though, his siblings seemed to grasp the concept that they couldn’t help as much as they thought. Reggie started getting more and more stressed whenever they would come in to help, and he’d often go entirely silent and just stare at the wall while they talked at him. Towards the end, right before his siblings moved out, they would only pop in to make sure Reggie was semi-okay before leaving him to his thoughts. 

Reggie liked to pretend that the arguing had no effect on him, and that everything was completely fine. He pretended he didn’t flinch every time their voices started to raise, even though it was a common occurrence. He would never tell anyone about how he would start to panic when something broke, and how it usually sent him into a not-so-fun panic attack. It would take him forever to calm himself down, and he couldn’t even begin to do that until the fighting stopped, which it never did right away. He told himself that he was ridiculous for reacting the way that he did, he’d grown up around this kind of stuff, and it shouldn’t have such a heavy bearing on his emotions. Reggie couldn’t even understand why he got so upset as if it wasn’t a normal thing, but he did, and it took a larger toll on his mental health than he’d like to admit. He found himself slowly sinking into depression, which didn’t help anything. Now when he would sleep all day, or go days without showering, it sparked arguments that he would be involved in. If Reggie dared to leave his room in the evening after spending the day in bed, one of his parents would make a comment about his habits, and when Reggie tried to defend himself, citing that he was just tired, the yelling would start. They would tell Reggie he had nothing to be tired over, and that his life was pretty easy, he was just a teenager. His parents convinced him that he was just being lazy, and he needed to get over himself, and that did not make his mental state take a turn for the better. 

The constant fighting often kept Reggie up all night, and he would only manage to fall asleep for a couple of hours before school, if he was lucky. That led to him falling asleep in class all too often, and understandably, Reggie’s teachers weren’t exactly pleased. Some of them, however, seemed to slowly start to realize that something deeper was going on, and they would stop lecturing Reggie after class. His math teacher even went out of her way to print off extra notes on the lesson for Reggie, and she would instead keep him after class to go over everything and make sure Reggie had some basic idea of what was going on. Other teachers weren’t as forgiving, though, and he could understand that, but it didn’t mean he appreciated the constant reminders that “falling asleep in class wasn’t appropriate” and if he wanted to pass he had to “put a little more effort in, how hard was it to just stay awake”? He would just apologize and promise to do better, just to get them off his back. Luckily, Reggie had one of his friends in most of his classes, so they could catch him up to speed on what he had missed while he tried to get at least some sleep. 

When Luke, Alex and Bobby eventually found out about Reggie’s not so stellar home life, their concern was immediate. Reggie brushed them off and assured them that things were fine, and that he was used to it. It quickly became clear that any talk of Reggie’s home life was off limits, so the boys stopped asking, but Reggie never missed the worried looks he was given after he showed up to practice and basically collapsed on the couch, completely set on taking a nap before they started doing anything. They always let him, and when he woke up even after a couple of hours, they were always still there and ready to go. A couple of times, though, he had slept quite longer than he’d originally planned, and he’d woken up to a mostly empty garage with a blanket draped over him. It was always Bobby who was still sitting out there with him, mainly because it was his garage, Reggie assumed, but also because he didn’t want Reggie to be entirely alone. Alex usually had to go back home so his parents wouldn’t flip, and the same could be said for Luke. Bobby would smile at him, lightly teasing him for sleeping so long that they had to practice without him, but it was obvious he wasn’t mad. He’d make sure Reggie got something to eat and a drink before he went home, and that he was doing okay. Reggie never really got too into what was going on, but the fact that his friends cared so much meant more than he could describe. 

Although Reggie tried to keep his home life and his band life completely separate, he couldn’t help his reactions sometimes when his friends started arguing with each other. They never missed the way he tensed up and seemed to hold his breath, clearly upset and uncomfortable even if the argument wasn’t over something huge. Whoever was involved would usually cut off the arguing right away and they would all check in with Reggie, obviously apologetic and asking him if he was alright. Time after time, Reggie would shrug them off and insist he was fine, he’d just gotten a little overwhelmed. That never seemed to satisfy the boys, but they at least knew not to push him. Luke was fiercely protective of all of his boys, and when he first found out about the fighting, he wanted every detail. Reggie had kept telling him no, but Luke had continued to badger him about it until Reggie finally snapped. He had basically told Luke that it wasn’t his business, and that he didn’t want to talk about it. At all. It was the first time any of the boys had seen Reggie genuinely mad, so Luke had dropped it without a second thought. Later on, after practice, Reggie told Luke he was sorry and he hadn’t meant to get so upset. Luke in turn had apologized for pushing, and they never really brought it up again. 

There was one particular night, though, that changed everything for Reggie. Things between his parents were at the worst they’ve ever been, and something came over him as he sat in his room, plucking uselessly at his bass. Bobby had offered up the garage to them if things ever got too bad with any of their parents, and Luke was currently staying there due to an incident with his parents that pushed him over the edge. Reggie’s bass was typically enough to drown out the arguing, but tonight was different. He could still hear too much of the fight, and the word he’d been dreading was finally dropped. Divorce. His mother had screamed it at his father, demanding a divorce and saying she was going to get the papers in the upcoming weeks. Now, things had always been bad and their relationship had gone sour years ago, but that specific word was a new one. Neither of them had brought up divorce before, and even though Reggie knew it was probably for the better, the thought still terrified him. Acting purely on fear, Reggie started shoving clothes and other things into a backpack, just knowing he had to get out of there and not come back. If he wasn’t there, maybe they wouldn’t get a divorce, since they wouldn’t have him to fight over. After grabbing his bass and his leather jacket, Reggie left through the window and he never looked back. He showed up at the garage, exhausted and upset, to find Luke still awake and scribbling away in his song journal. Luke took one look at Reggie and he seemed to just….know. Reggie had collapsed into Luke’s arms and finally, after years of holding everything in, just cried. He cried for a while, he knew that, but Luke sat with him through it all. He rubbed Reggie’s back and assured him he was okay, and that nothing he had done could have led to this. It was the longest night of Reggie’s life, and he had eventually fallen asleep curled up in Luke’s arms. It was a school night, of course, but they both agreed to just skip and Reggie spent the day unraveling everything to Luke. When the other boys joined them later on, Reggie repeated himself, finally allowing himself to tell his friends what he had been feeling. 

Reggie had explained to his friends how much of a burden his parents were on him, and how he constantly blamed himself for their fighting. Maybe if he wasn’t so stupid (they had immediately jumped on that and lightly scolded Reggie for calling himself stupid) or maybe if he wasn’t such a waste of space, things would be better. Finally getting to let all of his feelings out was incredible, and it felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. His bandmates had all listened intently, practice basically completely forgotten as they all piled on the couch to listen to Reggie pour his heart out. He told them he had no plans on going back to his house, and how his parents most likely didn’t even notice. And when they did? Who’s to say they would even care, they were going to be too busy with their divorce or whatever terms of separation were going to happen. The one thing Reggie couldn’t gloss over how much it hurt, though, was when his parents never came looking for him. Luke’s parents had gone all out; missing person posters, asking the other boys’ families, and they had even shown up to their school once looking for Luke. The Peters had done nothing of the sort, and Reggie didn’t even think they bothered to call around to see if anyone knew where Reggie was. It hurt more than Reggie was expecting it to, and it really made everything come into perspective. He really had meant next to nothing to his parents if they couldn’t even be bothered to search. He didn’t get a whole lot of time to deal with those feelings, as a couple months later was the faithful night they died. 

When they came back as ghosts, Reggie often wondered how his parents reacted when his death was brought to them. Did they even react? Were they upset? Or did they just shrug it off and go back to their usual ways? Part of him didn’t even want to know, so he never actively sought out his parents once they settled down and had gotten rid of Caleb’s stamp. He had a sinking feeling the truth would hurt him more than he could handle, and his friends were dealing with enough, he didn’t need to throw his crippling emotional state on top of that if he got bad news. 

Sitting on the couch in the garage, Reggie’s mind couldn’t help but drift to the idea of his parents, and where they could possibly be today. However, as he listened to Luke and Alex bicker playfully over what TV show to watch on Julie’s laptop, those thoughts were pushed out of his mind. He had a new family now, Julie and the Molinas included, and his old one didn’t matter. Scooting over to Luke, Reggie rests his head against his bandmate’s shoulder and snuggles up to him, lightly hitting him on the arm to stop the argument. Luke rolled his eyes, but he eventually gave in and wrapped his arms around Reggie, and soon enough, Julie had joined them and was settled contently on Reggie’s other side. Alex was on Luke’s opposite side, and he had one hand on Reggie’s arm, ensuring that they were all touching. As Reggie relaxed against Luke and felt his eyes get heavy (apparently ghosts could sleep. He hadn’t been expecting that), he couldn’t help but feel….safe. This was his family, and nothing was going to change that. No constant arguing, no broken glass, no telling him he was lazy. He could finally relax and not have to worry about his parents, and that was okay with him. Found family really was better than blood, and Reggie wouldn’t trade his bandmates for anything. Not even a new bass.


End file.
